Environmental advocate dies after setting himself on fire in New York

New York City: A prominent gay rights lawyer has died after setting himself on fire in a New York park to protest against pollution and the use of fossil fuels.

The lawyer David Buckel in New Jersey Supreme
Court during a 2006 case about same-sex marriage.

The body of David Buckel was found in Brooklyn's Prospect Park early Saturday. He left a note in a nearby shopping trolley that he also emailed to several news outlets including The New York Times.

"Pollution ravages our planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather," he wrote in the email sent to the Times.

Read The Sydney Morning Herald story - “Environmental advocate dies after setting himself on fire in New York."

Wildfires sweep Portugal, northern Spain, killing dozens

Lisbon/Madrid: At least 36 people have died in wildfires raging through parched farmlands and forests in Portugal and another three in neighbouring north-western Spain.

Residents walk past a burnt bus as a wildfire moves
forward in Chandebrito in the north-western Spanish
 region of Galicia. 

Firefighters were battling 50 blazes in Portugal and a similar number in Spain on Monday, local time.

Portugal's government has asked for international help and declared a state of emergency in territory north of the Tagus river - about half its landmass.

Flames ripped across Iberian countryside left tinder-dry by an unusually hot summer and early autumn, fanned by strong winds as remnants of ex-Hurricane Ophelia brushed coastal areas.

Read the story by Andrei Khalip and Raquel Castillo in today’s Melbourne Age - "Wildfires sweep Portugal, northern Spain, killing dozens.”